


the roaring of the seas, the tumult of the peoples

by BeggarWhoRides



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Helena's life, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Murder, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Religion, non-graphic childbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 13:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7363150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeggarWhoRides/pseuds/BeggarWhoRides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena and her babies, and Helena and her sisters, and Helena and religion.</p>
<p>But mostly, Helena and the ocean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the roaring of the seas, the tumult of the peoples

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [honey, that's how it sleeps](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208510) by [piggy09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09). 



> Warnings for: Non-graphic childbirth, references to abuse, self-harm, murder--it's Helena thinking about her life, so please keep that in mind.

Helena stands on the shore, where the water that’s deep deep blue turns to crystal-clear and rushes over her, swallowing up her feet, her ankles, spray bouncing up her bare legs, clinging to the edges of her skirt, and then pulling away and disappearing again, almost entirely, except for the little bits that stayed on Helena’s skin, Helena’s skirts, until the next wave.

She buries her toes in the sand until she can’t see them. She feels the grains between her toes even though she can’t see them, biting without teeth, sharp and gritty but not bleeding, not quite, and they feel small.

She looks out, out and out, and sees nothing, water and water and water and specks that are stars somewhere far up above, and she feels small.

The next wave washes in, and Helena can see them building, as far out as the horizon.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Her water broke all over Alison’s lovely couch, clear not like the ocean and hot not like the ocean and salty like the ocean, and Helena pressed a hand to her belly, felt the muscles there surge and tighten so impossibly hard and pain like when Sarah had punched her where Sarah had put metal through Helena’s stomach and thought **oh.**_

_Alison came down the stairs and shrieked oh at the top of her lungs, shouted for Donnie and called for Sarah on the phone, grabbed Helena and pulled her up off the couch, over toward the car._

_Helena wrapped her arms around her belly as best as she could and stumbled along._

_“'What to Expect When You’re Expecting' said that most contractions start well before the water breaks--” Alison said--Alison said many things but Helena did not hear most of it, Helena hunched over her belly and felt the babies moving, all sharp elbows and feet inside her belly all round and pink and soft, and then she felt her stomach grow hard like a stone again and gritted her teeth-- “Helena, are you hurting? Have you been in pain and not telling us?”_

_“I am always hurting,” Helena said, crammed in the back seat of the car next to Donnie Hendrix and rubbing her belly to try and make it soft again. “I did not realize when I was hurting **different.”**_

_Her fingers found the scar from Sarah on her belly, the one from when they first met. Something pushed back against her fingers and she wondered which baby it was._

_“Oh, my God, there’s gonna be babies--I mean there could babies, born, right here, in the SUV. Ohh God--”_

_“Donnie, keep it together. And do not use the Lord’s name in vain, please.” Alison drove with one hand and had a phone pressed to her ear with the other. She pursed her lips, frowned, and thrust the phone into the backseat. “Helena, Sarah wants to talk to you.”_

_Helena took one hand off her belly to take the phone and hold it close. “Hello, **sestra.”**_

_**“Helena, hey. It’s uh--it’s happening, huh?”** _

_“Yes,” Helena murmured, her belly growing hard and the pain coming back. She grabbed Donnie Hendrix’s arm and he made a funny whimpering noise. “Much happening.”_

_**“Jesus,”** Sarah huffed, half-laughed, and Helena could imagine her running a hand through her hair that was messy like Helena’s, dark not like Helena’s. **“Shite, okay, I’m gonna meet you at the clinic with Alison, just--just hold on until we get there, okay? I don’t wanna miss the birth of my nieces.”** Sarah went silent for a long moment. **“Jesus. I’m gonna have nieces. You’re gonna be a mum, Helena.”**_

_“Mu-m.” The word did not fit in Helena’s mouth, mushy in the wrong places, shredded apart between the jagged edges of her teeth. **“Maty,”** she tried, and that felt worse, and she shut her mouth with a click. _

_Sarah said more but Helena did not listen, passed the phone back to Alison and grabbed at Donnie Hendrix’s arm as she felt another pain building in her belly. He made a sound like a stuck pig. She crossed her legs tight and pressed her empty hand to the babies beneath her belly._

_There had been books, on the bad farm. Books with many pretty pictures of people all disassembled, parts and pieces all laid out much more neat and tidy than they ever would have been in life, or how they would have looked if you tried to slice up and sort out a person. Helena almost wished people were more like the pictures in the books, without the thudding desperate heart drowning itself in all the red blood and the living and the screaming._

_They were easier to understand that way._

_There had been a picture of a pregnant woman sliced in two from her head to her toes, and the baby curled up inside her, soft and sleeping. The baby was wrapped up in the ut-rus, and it was like a flower against all the guts, it was pink and looked soft and kind not like Helena._

_Her belly hardened again and she growled in a way that was almost mourning._

_That was how Sarah found her, in the car with chunks of Alison’s car in her fists and her legs pressed together until it hurt, screams pushing past her teeth as her body pushed her babies down and she tried to push them back._

_“Helena?” Sarah asked, careful and almost more gentle than frightened. “Helena, the nice nurses need to take you inside to help get your babies out, okay?”_

_The clinic loomed outside the car, and it was white and it was trying to be clean and it looked so much like the rooms at the farm and Helena **screamed** and her hand flew out and Sarah grabbed it, Sarah held it tight and Sarah climbed in the back seat with her and Sarah held Helena’s hand close and Sarah held Helena’s hand._

_“Helena--Helena,” Sarah said, again and again, and Sarah was scared and Helena didn’t want that but Helena always caused that. “Helena, your babies could be in real trouble, okay? They need to come out.”_

_**“No,”** Helena said, or screamed, or cried, and Sarah winced but Sarah didn’t let go._

_“I don’t think you really have a choice right now,” Sarah laughed. “Helena, the babies need to be born.”_

_“I don’t want them to,” Helena said, let go of Alison’s upholstery to wrap her arm around her stomach like a claw. “I want them to stay **safe.”**_

_“Helena--”_

_“The ut-rus is pink,” Helena explained, clinging to Sarah like she was the only land in the world, clinging to her belly like it was a raft. “It is so **warm** inside of bellies, Sarah,” Helena said--Helena had sliced open a doe in the winter, watched the blood sink through the snow with a hiss, watched the steam from the twisted insides rise high into the air--she had found Janika in the winter--one hand found the scar from Sarah on her belly, raised and angry underneath her clothes. “Nobody can touch them. Nobody can make them separate.”_

_“They’ll die, Helena,” Sarah said, and Helena made a choking noise--like the doe, like Janika--and twisted herself around her belly tighter, tighter. “Your babies will die.”_

_“I want to keep them safe.”_

_“They won’t leave you, okay? We’ll make sure of that, all of us--we’ll protect your babies, I swear we will--”_

_“I don’t want them to be like me.”_

_“They won’t,” Sarah said, a little choking-sob chasing her words. “I promise you, they won’t be. None of the--the bad stuff that happened to you will ever happen to these babies, okay? They’re gonna be **amazing,** Helena. They’re gonna always have a family, with uncles and too many crazy aunties and--and a mum and everything. Okay?” Helena could not tell where her hand ended and Sarah’s began, but someone was holding on so tight it hurt, and someone was crying._

_**“Mum,”** Helena repeated, feeling the word fall apart like sugar on her lips. “I do not know how to be this.”_

_“You’ll learn,” Sarah promised, and their hands were laced together like they were always meant to be. “If I can figure it out--Helena, you’ll learn. You were made for this.”_

_**You were made for this,** Tomas had said, and pushed a fish-blade into her hands, and **you were made for this** Sarah said, her hand on Helena’s hand on Helena’s belly._

_Helena wasn’t sure that Tomas had been lying._

_She wasn’t sure Sarah was either._

_“You make me cry, **sestra,”** Helena said, slow and blinking, and Sarah giggled, the sound harsh and heavy and wet, and helped Helena inside._

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Helena walks along the beach, right where the water reaches the land, for hours--until her feet go so numb they might not even be there, until her legs burn and her arms ache almost too much to hold up.

This hurt is different, this hurt is good--legs burning, muscles crying, but not from running away. From walking towards. She doesn’t know towards what, there is nothing beyond her hut on the shore for miles and miles and miles--but Helena can feel that she is walking towards, somehow.

Sometimes she sits down, the waves crashing up and into her lap and soaking her skirt, splashing her face with salt. She sits there and lets her babies feed, the sun hot on her shoulders and the water cold on her legs.

She is not used to this. She does not know how to use her body to nourish, not to hurt. She still pulls her breast from one of their mouths sometimes, to make sure that it is good milk that they are drinking and not sickly poisons or hot blood.

But she is getting better.

She never looks away from the babies, not really. She is always waiting for them to look hot, or hungry, or like they need cleaning, she is always waiting for them to cry out or to scream--but they are such good babies, with wide dark eyes like Sarah’s, like Helena’s, blinking up at her. One of them likes to squint up at the sun as it passes through Helena’s hair and onto her little face. One of them likes to watch the waves. Helena likes to watch them both.

Helena finds a piece of driftwood in the sand, twisted and old and bleached white in the sun, and decides to turn around and walk back toward the hut. Nobody stops her or tries to tell her differently. Helena chooses where to go, and she goes, and it is terrifying. Helena chooses where to go, and she goes, and it is like flying.

She presses her babies tight to her sides and walks along the beach, right where the water reaches the land. The water swallows up her footprints and washes them far, far away.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Helena took her babies to be baptized._

_Helena built crosses out of bones from animals she killed, Helena made herself an angel from scars and stolen razor blades, and Helena stood in front of a man who says they are standing in the heart of God as he drips water onto her babies’ heads but Helena knew better. Helena had seen so many hearts, thick tough muscle and so red that it oozes out and over every inch of them, strong and fiercer than anything and so easy to stop._

_The place had crosses like Maggie’s, thick and wood and polished. It was shining and golden and the sun came through the windows and made so many pretty colors out of the picutre of Jesus dying and bleeding on the pretty cross, Jesus who asked my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?_

_The priest talked of many things while Helena holds her babies close; he talked of love and forgiveness and Heaven instead of abominations and knives and hellfire._

_This place was like a candy house, all pretty things and spun-sugar-spirals, like it would melt away the moment the first few drops of blood fell onto its roof. The windows were made of so many bright colors, yellows and blues and greens and reds that were so deep they were almost like liquid when the sunshine hit them just right. The priest smiled and smiled and told Helena they were beautiful babies, beautiful names, and that Helena was a beautiful mother. Helena smiled like Alison and looked at a statue of a beautiful angel with long blonde hair and wings with pretty white feathers and felt her back itching._

_“Do you think they would have let me in,” she asked Alison when they were outside, and Alison was twisting the crucifix around her neck between her polished-pink fingers. “If they knew what I did?”_

_Alison went very, very still, and Helena felt small and stupid for asking and hunched over herself and her babies--_

_“The priest might not have let you in,” Alison said at last, the crucifix squeezed so tight between the pads of her fingers that it disappeared into her grip. “But he--he would be wrong. To do that. Because God--well. The priest is a man who might believe he is doing God’s will and continuing His mission but--well, the important thing about God is love. And forgiveness for our sins. He gives that to all of His children, no matter how--how terrible of sinners they are. So the question is not whether the priest would have let you in, but whether he would have been right to do so. And he wasn’t. So.”_

_Alison hesitated, her eyes sliding to Helena and away like there was something else she wanted to confess, but she dropped the cross and nodded once, sharp like a bird._

_“Thank you,” Helena said, soft and small, and Alison had smiled, reaching out to touch Helena’s shoulder, feather-light and quick but there._

_“Anytime, Helena.”_

_Later, Sarah came by, kissing both babies on the forehead and taking one of them in her arms the way she always did, sitting on the couch across from Helena and smiling so gentle-loving at the little one. It was the one that hadn’t been held by Sarah last time--Helena always made sure of that, wanted to make sure that both her babies would be held by Sarah equally, looked at like that equally._

_“So?” Sarah asked after a long moment, one of her fingers claimed by the baby in her arms. “How was the christening thing? I don’t--I don’t know how they’re supposed to be, really, but was it, y’know, good?”_

_Helena pursed her lips, thought for a long moment. “Do you remember when we snuck in to see sestra Alison on the stage? With the costumes and the singing?”_

_Sarah laughed, bouncing the baby a little as she did. “Wish I didn’t, but yeah.”_

_Helena nodded. “It was like that.”_

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Helena writes letters on the beach, sometimes, her toes dragging through the sand and making long shaky words. She doesn’t get them all right, she doesn’t think--words are hard, even harder to write down, even harder than that to make them the right ones, so that she can be understood--but it’s okay, she thinks. It is the ocean that swallows them up and takes them away, and she thinks that the ocean understands.

_Dear Janika, I am sorry for shooting you. You did not see me but I stayed hiding in the building so you were not alone when you died. I saw that you were scared and I am sorry for making you scared but I do not think that you are scared anymore and that is good. I did not know I was your sister when I shot you. I do not know if I would have shot you anyway._

_Dear Danielle, I am sorry that I killed you. You were at a party in a club and I think you were having much fun until I slit your throat and I wish I had not done that. You were very beautiful. I tried to look like you when I was in a club once but I think that you looked much more beautiful than I do._

_Dear Aryanna, I am sorry that I stabbed you. It was very messy and it took a very long time. I could have done better and I could have made it quicker. You were the first girl that I killed and I was very scared. You were also very scared. I thought I was doing what God needed me to do. I do not think you are an abomination anymore I hope you are not in Hell._

_Dear Katja, I am sorry for shooting you. My aim was very good and you did not see me so I think it was very quick and I do not think that you hurt very much. Sestra Cosima said that you were dying anyway so I think maybe it was better but I do not know if you think that._

_Dear Sarah_

_Dear Amelia, I do not think I am sorry, and I think that is bad but it would also be bad to lie. You did not make me this way but you let them make me this way and you took Sarah from me and I do not think I will ever forgive you for that. I would not be so broken if you did not do that. If you did not exist then I would not exist and sometimes I think that would be better. But then Sarah would not exist and that would never be better._

_Dear Sarah_

_Dear Parsons I am sorry for what the other men did to you. I hope that you are not hurting any more. I am not sorry for killing you because it was the right thing to do even though killing is wrong because it is easy to say killing is wrong all the time but I think it is more complicated than that. Also I know that killing is the only thing I can do for someone hurting. Do you think that I will be able to heal my babies without killing. Do you think that if I have to kill my babies I will be able to. I almost did not kill the puppy._

_Dear Rudy I am not sorry._

_Dear Fake Paramedic I am not sorry._

_Dear Gracie I hope you are happy. I miss you but I am glad you are far away._

_Dear Tomas why did you never come back for me._

_Dear Maggie why did you leave. What did I do wrong._

_Dear Sarah I miss you. Here is the prettiest I have ever been. The ocean is so blue, Sarah. I think it goes to the end of the world. It is blue and cold and salty and sharp, it makes me cry sometimes. I think it is like me. The ocean is so terrible, Sarah. The ocean swallows everything up and takes it away and it is alone. Sestra Cosima said that if we drink the water from the ocean we die. Even though the water is clear and cool it tastes so bad and it twists up our insides and it kills us Sarah. Sestra Cosima said that there are still things that live in the ocean anyway. We went to the aquarium and she showed me so many fish with so many pretty colors and all the plants and the turtles and the sharks. She said that if you swim in the ocean and hold your breath and look around underwater even though the salt burns your eyes and your lungs would hurt but Sarah, you can see so many beautiful things. She said that she loved the ocean._

_Dear Sarah do you love the ocean._

_Dear Sarah do you miss me._

Helena’s hair is turning blonde even at the roots, but instead of with the sting of peroxide and the foulness of gas station bathrooms there is just salt sharp in her nose and the sun hot on her head. Freckles burst like stars on her shoulders and down her back. Her babies babble and coo to each other and to Helena in a language that only they understand, and they are never far from Helena, never far from each other. Helena’s arms are all strong muscle and tan skin now. She has gotten good at carrying them.

Helena baptizes her babies at dawn, dribbling handfuls of saltwater over their foreheads just as the sun turns the cold dark sky all shades of pink and yellow and orange. She swipes her thumb through the water on their foreheads, careful to keep it out of their eyes, and murmurs their names.

She kisses their foreheads, one first then the other, and then she kisses them again, the other first and then the second. They still smell so babysoft and sweet, like milk and honey, like dawn and like freshness. Like something so lean and new and not yet sullied. They taste, so faintly, of salt.

Nadiya and Lyuba. Lyuba and Nadiya. Hope and love and love and hope. Helena rolls the names around in her mind until they are all mashed together and she cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. Lyuba and Nadiya and Nadiya and Lyuba and LyubaandNadiyaandNadiyaandLyubaandLyubaandNadiyaand--

Her babies blink up at her, at the sky beyond her that is turning big and bright and blue. They are soft and pure and they love her. Helena is none of those things and she loves them.

She wants to be good at it.

_“Moyi sertsya,”_ she whispers, and speaking to them is the holiest thing her mouth has ever done. “Come. We are going home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Psalm 65:7
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! This was my first foray into Helena's mindset, so please do let me know what you thought. I really do recommend reading the fic this was inspired by--it's absolutely lovely. 
> 
> Comments are always welcome, and criticism definitely encouraged! I'm always looking to chat (or for writing prompts) on tumblr at letsbeasymphony if that's more your style.


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